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Detox Nation with Sinclair Kennally
"Infertility Is a Signal" How a 3-Month Detox Improves Sperm & Pregnancy | Ann Shippy, MD
00:26:47
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- [00:00]
A
We should be helping the couples to understand why their bodies are putting on the brakes. Men having a detox period can dramatically change the health of the baby.
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B
It actually shifts the miscarriage rates.
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A
I actually think infertility is a gift. Anybody over 30, 31 is starting to view their bodies as potentially not being able to conceive. Beautiful thing is, there's hope.
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B
Dr. Ann, thank you so much for being here with us today.
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A
I'm so excited to be here with you and that you're doing this.
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B
This has become a really important topic. Unfortunately, we're seeing this explosion of fertility issues, just like we're seeing an explosion of these inflammatory challenges in every system in the body. And that's why we have to talk about this. So what do you see are the top factors creating fertility challenges today?
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A
It's very complex. Gotten here to where we are, which is a significant decrease in men's sperm. So. So 50% in 50 years. And so instead of just 1% a year, on average, now that's escalating to over 2% drop in sperm count a year. And then we're seeing 1 in 6 or 1 in 8 couples deal with infertility, which means they haven't gotten pregnant in over a year of trying. So we're reaching this precipice where people are really scared, like, are they going to be able to get pregnant? Hmm. So with what I get to do with my patients, we find there are nutrients that are depleted. We find that the environmental toxins are high. We find that stress is up and the inflammatory markers are up. So the exciting thing is that when we start to address all of that, the body changes. Men's sperm counts go up and are able to actually penetrate the egg and fertilize easier. And then women are having female babies into their mid-40s and maybe even a little later. We'll see. I've got one that's at 47 right now. She's just three weeks in. But this whole idea of geriatric pregnancies and calling Women Geriatric After 35, I want to put an end to that, because that's not what I see. I see women, you know, we're built to procreate and continue the species. And before we started manipulating our food and poisoning our environment so much, women easily had babies into their mid-40s, like they would have six, eight, 10, 12 children. My grandmother had nine. Wow. And my mother had her. I had my sister at 44. Accident, you know, wasn't expecting it because she had gone through some Issues with infertility. And so I learned firsthand that women can have babies well into their 40s. Little did I know that that might not apply to me. So I waited until I was a little over 30. You know, I was on this corporate IBM track before I went to medical school. And it didn't even cross my mind that I might have start to have some trouble. But I did. I was not getting pregnant. And then I decided to go to medical school. So here I am, 34, in medical school thinking, oh, might not get to have a family. Wow. Unfortunately, some changes that I made in my lifestyle at the time when I was in med school probably really helped me to become more fertile. And surprise, got number one. And then at 38, I was about to go through IVF. The doctor look at all, looked at all my numbers. It was like, oh, Ann, there's no way you're getting pregnant. You just need to go ahead and do ivf. And I was in residency, which meant I was doing call every third or fourth night and have a 36 hour shift with no sleep for months on end. And so they were looking at my numbers, they thought they were. I was done. If I wanted to have a second one, I really had to be invasive. But something changed again and got number two at 38. Wow.
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B
Amazing.
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A
Even with all that stress, is that an ideal thing to do? No. I think if you can actually start to address some of these things where what we're seeing now with the environmental toxicity and having manipulated our food so much and our stress levels. And then I think you alluded to in your question now that we've all been kind of scraped from the inside with spike protein, either through having Covid or through vaccination. That has really increased inflammation in almost everybody's bodies.
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B
So what are your approaches to that as a doctor? Where do you go from there knowing that? Because that's a heavy realization.
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A
Beautiful thing is that there's hope. Like our bodies really don't want to stay in this inflamed state. And just little nudges often will get people so that that inflammation settles down. And so the place that I love to start is with diet. By eating a low inflammation diet, which for me is shopping outside of the grocery store. You know, the fruits and vegetables and clean meats and nuts and seeds and taking out the packaged goods. And often those packaged goods are coming with the toxins. So by starting there, we can often see things start to change right away. For people that are highly, highly motivated. I like people to take out the gluten, take out the dairy and take out the grains and really focus on the fruits and vegetables and lean meats. That will change things very quickly for a lot of people. The nutrients that our bodies use to build things that are anti inflammatory. So things like Inositol is amazing for women's cycles and for pregnancy. A supplement called MitoQ, which is a special form of CoQ 10 and then other mitochondrial support can really again start that shift out of the inflammatory state.
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B
I'm really glad you're making this sound simple because it can be really scary for somebody, for a couple to start navigating this and realize, oh, my gosh, toxins. Oh, my gosh, mold exposures in the past or mold exposures currently, oh, my doctor's telling me to take down life stress. Ha ha. Good luck. In this day and age and with the demands on me, and yet I still want to have a family. You know, one of the things we help people do in our practice is really simplify down the toxin exposure piece. Where can we simplify? How do we filter your water first? How do we work on filtering air? You know, just ease down the incoming pressures, right? Because I think people don't realize you are your own source of toxin exposure. You are your greatest source of toxin exposure. You just may not realize it because you didn't consent to all these contaminations in your food, air and water, and personal care products. You have so much control, more control than you know, Right? So how do you look at it as a fertility specialist? When you're thinking about endocrine disruptor toxins and all of these complexities, it is
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A
quite overwhelming when you start to think about pretty much everything around you, whether it's the, you know, the new paint that you're wanting to paint your nursery with, or the new sofa or even the rocking chair. Like, all the things that you're bringing into your space and, you know, the food that you're eating often are full of issues, but just a little bit of attention to it as you're bringing new things into your space can make a huge difference. Just like, okay, you need a new couch, make sure it doesn't have flame retardants on it and it's not full of PFAs and other things. So just that little extra as you're bringing new things in. And then like you mentioned, knowing to filter your water. I really like everybody to get an air filter with a good HEPA filtration in their bedroom at night, because that's like, you know, hopefully you're prioritizing, sleeping eight hours or more, and then at least you're getting clean air then. So even if you're living close to a highway, you're. And having more air pollution than you realize from. From the cars outside. So just that little bit of increased awareness and willingness to do the work. Just one of the things that I've really had a challenge on my own is that I know I want to do that. I'm not there yet. Maybe this will make people feel a little bit better that we're looking for progress, not perfection. I really like this idea of wearing all natural fabrics.
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B
It is so hard. I'm always looking for them and then I'm trying to build relationships with these companies and very nicely asking questions. And then it turns out what they're using. They're calling it green, but it's actually highly toxic. So so not biocompatible. But because it's recycled toxins, it has to be better. No, ma'. Am.
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A
In a solar, it's not readily available. Whereas I think with a little focus on our food, a little focus on our water and some of the household
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B
things, it just kills me. Cause it's like this greenwashing of like, oh, we're reusing the same toxins.
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A
Cool.
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B
Do you think your body's gonna like them any better the second time around?
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A
Well, and unfortunately, I think they actually degrade easier.
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B
They do, they degrade faster and they use really toxic processes to them into new materials. It's not biocompatible.
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A
So maybe we just use those things outside, not bring them in on. Put them on our bodies and in our. In our houses, but by just paying a little bit of attention to those things. Check them off your list as you go. I. I'm going to be working on the clothing part. I was traveling in Greece this summer and I found this clothing company that makes these beautiful things out of silk that were very affordable. So find some more things like that.
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B
Organic sheets. We could start there.
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A
I really like the skin brand for the cotton nightgowns. They're so soft and they great. They wash a zillion times. So the price per wear, it's worth it.
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B
Yes.
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A
And they run really good sales. No, but that's true. Like, since so much of our process to detox is at night when we're sleeping, it's really good to have on organic silk or cotton cloth clothes that breathe, I think. And then I think it's also good to put on clean clothes each night to sleep because we're detoxing into them. So putting on a fresh nightgown every night. I don't know, people normally do that. Like when I was growing up, we had like one or two nightgowns and our clothes would get washed once a week. I do think after my big mold exposure, I started realizing, oh, I don't want to put that nightgown on again. Because I was detoxing so much as I was really learning how to accelerate the detox process in my body by taking the liposome glutathione and my B vitamins and my binders eating. So it's like, oh, I can't wear that again. I gotta wash, wash it.
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B
It's such a great point. Because our skin is so absorptive of those toxins. And so if it's not food, you don't want it on your skin anyway. And your body works so hard to get it out at night. You want to give it a chance to not be re exposed.
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A
So I think around this fertility issue, a lot of these things that we're working on getting into place in our lives even now, you know, you and I, it's an ongoing learning process. Yeah, There are things I wish I had known when I was bringing my new baby into the house. Like, I just didn't know at the time that the mattress I put them on and the cleaners that I was using in the bathroom, I mean, that's, you know, 24 and 28 years ago. Hopefully this will be all kicked in for my grandchildren because the children's respiratory rate they get, they actually get a higher load of toxins because they're breathing it in more, more quickly. And then their little detox pathways aren't well defined yet. And so it makes it even more important to have done this work on having the environment healthy and then especially for women to, you know, that we know from the environmental working group and other studies, there's over 200 toxins in the cord blood. And that was 20 years ago, almost 20 years ago. So now it's going to be even worse. So the better we can get our toxin levels down before we get pregnant, the better it's going to be for being more fertile and then also having healthier babies. And then one area of research that's, this has been so fun writing my book that's coming out in November, is the epigenetic impact of the toxins on sperm. So men, by them having a detox period 3, 6, 12 months before and between pregnancies can dramatically change a little time capsule that goes along with the sperm that can influence the health of the baby.
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B
So let's unpack that, because I feel like that is the biggest area of opportunity for couples right now that is still being misunderstood or overlooked. So when we're thinking about preconception, we're not just thinking about cleaning out mom, so she's not building a baby and offloading toxins to the baby. But we're also talking about getting dad ready for conceptions, for easier conception. Right. But also, how does it impact the health of the baby, you know, to have dad have a high toxin load?
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A
It's pretty profound. It can affect the baby from a neurodevelopmental standpoint. You know, risk for autism and other things can affect their risk for having diabetes and other metabolic issues and lean issues, as well as mental health and probably autoimmunity as well. So this is. I think this. It's a little bit overwhelming when men first start to think about it, like, oh, wait, that I was thinking that was for my partner. But then when they start realizing, oh, my gosh, I can actually, by me working on my health, by me optimizing my health, I can gift my baby a healthier body, not just pass along some sperm, not just put the. You know, do the be responsible for the fertilization point. They want to know. Men want to know. It can make a difference to not drink alcohol, not do pot, not do other substances, and to get the toxins out of their body as well. Plus, the stress markers also get passed on. So the data around yoga and meditation for men preconception is also super fun. It kind of gives men an opportunity to prioritize taking care of themselves.
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B
You know, I think this is really important because there's such a tunnel vision in the fertility world right now, especially as the harder it is to conceive and the more couples experience fertility challenges, the more there's this pressure on the conception event and how to get to it faster. And people acknowledge there's a need for preconception detox, but they're not thinking through how that prep is also protecting the health of the pregnancy and also protecting the health of the infant and the
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A
toddler and the mother. Like, the mother's more likely to be healthy if the man has done their detox piece ahead of time. So it drops the risk for preeclampsia and some of those other things during the pregnancy.
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B
That's such a great point. Can you also speak to the, you know, the placenta issues, like that data that came out with male Sperm quality, you know, and the how it impacts the placenta quality.
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A
I've had people where they're like, oh my God, my doctor couldn't believe I had this beautiful placenta at 40. Like, they're like, what, what is this? This isn't what we're expecting. Where everything looks so healthy.
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B
It actually shifts the miscarriage rates if men detox and the sperm quality go. And it's a whole thing around, you know, the placenta quality.
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A
One of the things that I really like to do with the men that are really data driven is to use some of these new sperm tests. In the past, we've just been able to, like through a local lab, look at the sperm count and morphology, which is basically how normal did the sperm look and did it look like there were some little visual changes in them. But now there's a sperm test where they can look at the epigenetics, so looking to see what the methylation patterns are on the sperm to anticipate how healthy the sperm are. So what's really fun for those that are data driven is to see where their baseline is, then put the work in of 3, 6, 12 months and see all that improve. So it really validates this concept that they're going to help the health of the child because the sperm expression is actually healthier. And then there's another sperm test that I haven't used quite as much yet. So one of the problems has been that the implantation piece, can the sperm actually get into the egg? Now there's a test that can measure and it's very related to nutrient status, something called phosphatidylserine. And so when that's higher, the sperm can penetrate better, so you're more likely to get pregnant. So if you're looking at both of those things and optimizing it, so gets back to taking the time and really preparing rather than rushing into IVF or other options. And then when you have the data and you can actually see things are changing and improving, it correlates with what I see with patients where they just get pregnant easier. So the 47 year old that I mentioned, when they first came in, they were like, okay, it's probably a dream that we can even get pregnant at this point. So they were wanting to go right away, but I was like, I need at least three months. Like, yeah, we have to take three months. Yeah. And they did. And then they got pregnant on the first try. Like, I don't, I don't have a lot of people in their late 30s and early to mid-40s. She's the first 47 year old. But now I've got a 46 year old. It was the same thing because they know each other. She must be like, I want to go now. I want to get like, I want pregnant now. And I'm like, no, we're going to at least take three months. We're going to do the detox, build the nutrients when you do get pregnant, that you sustain a healthy pregnancy and have a healthy baby.
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B
Amazing. We've covered so much territory today. Can you recap for our listeners who are trying to get pregnant right now? What you see is the top factors you want them to pay attention to. Like, we covered, you know, environment, cleaning up your environment, doing the internal detox work. What are those other pieces?
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A
Yeah, so starting with putting the healthy nutrients in so that you actually have the nutrients to have healthy epigenetics and grow a healthy baby, limit the toxins coming into your body as best you can without driving yourself crazy. And then taking the nutrients to reduce inflammation and help to have a strong microbiome. And then I think we both find certain supplements really, really helpful for helping the body to get rid of the toxins that are there that have built up in the body over time. So things like lysamylglutathione and some binders, B vitamins. And so I really think most people, whether they're trying to get pregnant or not, have better health and longevity by including a lot of these things in their supplement plan most days. And then the mindset piece of it, like if the conversation in our head is that we're running from the tiger, it's not safe or got too much to do. I'm stressed the body's listening and it's not going to be thinking, let's prioritize creating a baby. So slowing down a little bit and taking time to actually meditate, do yoga. And then I love some of the technology for this, especially for people that are just feeling like the world is more stressful now, which I think that's most of us. We just have so much information coming through with social media news. The way we, I think we know too much information of things that we don't have control over, devastating suffering, and especially for those that tend to be sensitive anyway, knowing those things, seeing visuals of them, I think really changes our biology. So reducing the amount that we're actually exposing ourselves to that and stick more to the things that we can influence is really, really great. So reducing technology. But then the tech that I would Bring in are things around neurofeedback.
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B
I love neurofeedback, so it's so good.
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A
Device called the Muse. Little headband. Picks up your brainwave, sends it to an app on your phone, and then you can learn to meditate. But then it's also really retraining your brain to not be in that high beta run from the tiger state and actually get into a state where you're at something called an alpha state, where you're more likely to be able to relax. There's also another one that's a little bit newer. That one's been around over 10 years. So I have a lot of experience with outcopations. And there's a newer one called Sensei. A little more fancy technology and a little bit more gamified so you can actually train more different parts of your brain. So in addition to training your brain how to relax more, you can also train it to focus more, be more intuitive or other things. Other things that you might desire. And then vagus nerve stimulators are such a game changer for some people, especially for people who've been through toxic mold experiences and other things to where it has been. Kind of like going to war.
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B
That is very real. Yeah.
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A
To very quickly start to help the nervous system settle back into the parasympathetic or relaxed part of the state, rather that sympathetic run from the. From the tiger. This is also be able to take a break from it. Exactly. For me personally, those things have made a huge difference.
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B
What are some of your favorite vagus nerve stimulators out there? There's a bunch now.
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A
There's a bunch. And the one I keep coming back to is Tru Vega.
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B
Really?
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A
You know.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Do you have a favorite one?
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B
You know, we're working a lot with Hulus right now. It's a very gentle, soft, buzzy, and something about the size and the shape of it works with people. But I honestly love the CES Ultra. I know it's super ugly. It's like 30 years old or something. It looks like a little 80s Walkman, but it works so well. Yeah.
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A
So then for people that have done all this and they're still struggling to conceive, then we really need to dig in deeper. Or for people that are. Have. Have an intuition that something's still off in their body, then we got to go collect data. I gotta look at things like mycotoxin levels and heavy metals, plastics, and all the different toxins so we know where we are. We need to look at the Microbiome. So is there a low grade fungal infection, a yeast infection? Are you carrying some parasites around? Have you disrupted your good bacteria? Because those can make a huge difference. So.
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B
Absolutely.
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A
A lot of times I'll have people, you know, start on a probiotic and we'll start to see some things improve. But if I can get the data to know exactly where we are and what we're going to do, that's super helpful. And then sometimes we dig even deeper and look to see how mitochondria are functioning, other nutrient levels, and really dial in things.
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B
More specifically, there's a lot that needs to be caught up on in the fertility world right now. What would you say lovingly to your colleagues in the fertility space at, you know, what do you want to make sure that they're also paying attention to? Yeah, that's getting overlooked. I know you'll be classy and say it with love.
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A
Yeah. So there are a couple of books coming out actually in the next few months by reproductive endocrinologists talking about ivf. And unfortunately, I think the way fertility is being talked about Today, anybody over 30, 31, is starting to view their bodies as potentially not being able to conceive. And unfortunately, the reproductive endocrinologists are fueling this narrative, which I think is wrong. The when I actually think infertility is a gift, it's telling you the body, either the man or the woman's or both bodies, are not in a position to conceive and have a healthy baby. Instead of bypassing it with medications, procedures like IUIs and IUF, IVF, we should be helping the couples to understand why their bodies are putting on the brakes. I think that the children's health crisis, with the increase in autism, the mental health, the diabetes, the autoimmunity, the cancer that we're seeing escalate in our children,
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B
sensitivity, skin issues, adhd, all of it.
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A
Because we're not taking this opportunity of the preconception time to help men and women actually know how to get their bodies more fertile and get their bodies ready to be pregnant. And instead of this idea that, oh, we should start funding the insurance, you know, having the insurance cover IVF, or, you know, having people start saving for IVF at 30, that we need to put those resources into freely helping people to become more fertile by having healthier bodies and then have better fertility and healthier babies.
- [25:44]
B
That's beautifully said. I think you give so much hope and I love the way you respect the body's internal wisdom, but using all of the fun gadgets and data testing all the things available to us today. So thanks for being such an advocate for couples everywhere who want to bring healthy babies in.
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A
Thank you. It's such a joy to get to do that.
- [26:06]
C
Thanks for spending this time with us today. I know these conversations can bring up a lot, and I want you to have room to sit with what you learned and let it land in your own body. If you want more support or you're curious about the next step on your healing path, you can always connect with me. Find me on Instagram hedetoxnation and explore resources mentioned in this episode@detoxnation.com this conversation is shared for education and personal reflection, and isn't medical advice. Please always work with your trusted healthcare providers for your care. I'm really glad you're here and I'll see you in the next episode.